


Guard Duty

by Arsenic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-11
Updated: 2006-09-11
Packaged: 2020-07-23 03:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20001193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Challenge: Snape, Harry.  "Do you know what this is, Potter?" Snape said, his eyes glittering dangerously again.





	Guard Duty

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hpshortfics

Harry looked at Kingsley somewhat quizzically. "With all due respect, sir-"

"Harry, we're alone in your office."

"You're still my boss."

"Which is why I can tell you to do this, but I'd prefer if you didn't start acting like I'm some kind of stranger."

Harry slumped down in his chair. "Why me? You have a corps of nearly thirty Aurors under your supervision, at least ten of whom were schooled abroad and have few to no connections to him. Why not one of them?"

Kingsley's smile is weird somehow, a bit off. "Maybe I'm playing G-d."

Harry raised his eyebrow at the particularly Muggle reference. Kingsley shrugged. "Dumbledore, if that works better for you."

"It's certainly more on target," Harry muttered.

Kingsley pinned Harry with a look. "This is the third time he's slipped away from guard supervision. Until we find a substitute for the Dementors, guards are what we're stuck with, and he's too damned much for them to handle. I'm sending in three of my people, in shifts, and I'm asking you to be one. You know him. You know his tricks."

"And you aren't worried I'll abuse my authority with him?"

Kingsley smiled, and this time it was the smile Harry knew, if a bit sharp. "I know you, Harry. I know your tricks."

*

Snape _hissed_ when Harry came to stand outside his cell. Harry, having learned a few things in the intervening years between his and Snape's last confrontation, smiled mildly.

As he had predicted, this only pissed Snape off more.

And so it went, week after week after week, until the week Snape actually said something. To Harry's surprise, it wasn't an insult or something mundane like, "Do you think you could manage to Summon a glass of water, or would that tax your capabilities too far?" (which admittedly, was also an insult, but couched in a question).

Instead, Snape raised his head from the book he was reading and set his gaze on Harry, his eyes glittering dangerously. "Do you know what this is, Potter?" he asked.

For an insane second, Harry thought he was asking about the title of the book. Then his brain caught up. "Me guarding your cell until the time when you're too old and decrepit to harm so much as a hair on anybody's head?"

"Much as it pains me to say this, don't you imagine there are more important things for the Famous Harry Potter to be doing?" Snape's ability to cut down at Harry merely through the mention of his name was actually pretty impressive.

"We all do our part, Snape. That's actually something I would think you would understand."

"There's delegating, and then there's delegating."

Harry was about to deny that Snape had any idea what he was talking about when he remembered the not-quite-on quality of Kingsley's smile in response to Harry's nearly identical question. Harry said, "Try not to get an inflated sense of your own importance."

*

Kingsley looked up at Harry's startling entrance into his office. "Um, good evening?"

"Now the real reason." Harry didn't sit down or even relax his stance. He liked Kingsley, but he hated being lied to.

Kingsley flicked his wand. Harry rolled his eyes. "I put Silencers up as I came in. I'm not an Auror because of my looks."

Kingsley smiled at him, and Harry had a hard time not smiling back. Kingsley sighed and said, "Scrimgeour wanted the detail made up of people who, and I quote, 'Will not hesitate to use deadly force should he try to escape.'"

Despite Harry's crack at Snape about the length of his imprisonment, the man had several opportunities at being released early given the cooperation he had shown both in the final confrontation and afterward. Harry's stomach _moved_ weirdly, as it always did at that thought. "He's not idiot enough to try and escape under the nose of someone he knows would catch him and probably kill him."

"No," Kingsley said softly, "he's not, is he?"

And Harry, although he would never admit this aloud, only resorted to lethal force in the absence of all other choice. Kingsley already knew that. So the only question left was, "Why are you protecting him?"

Harry wasn't brilliant at the deductive aspects of being an Auror. He tended to let other members of the team handle that part of the retrieve and capture while he worked the actual capture end. When Kingsley let the well-mannered, politely-interested shield slide from his eyes, Harry didn't have to deduce anything. He knew what he was seeing.

*

Harry said, his eyes glittering a bit dangerously themselves, "I know exactly what this is, Snape."

Harry hadn't been using Legilimancy, but he felt Snape's mental barriers go up so hard that even the echo of it hurt. "You do, Potter?"

"Yeah," Harry said and paused. "Would you like a glass of water?"

The expression Harry recalled on Kingsley's face was enough to get him to play nice with this man. The injustice that itched at the back of Harry's mind concerning the Ministry's dealings with Snape even more so. The look of confusion so profound it could rock the very bars between them was more pay off than Harry ever could have imagined.

Harry said, "Well?"

Snape said, "Try to make sure it's drinkable."


End file.
